Dying to get there: the perils of adventure travel, a middle-aged obsession

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They could be queuing for a ride at Alton Towers: 200 thrill-seekers patiently standing in line for their turn. Some have been waiting for three hours. But this isn’t some theme-park jolly – it is the slope of the world’s highest mountain and these adventurers are more than 25,000ft above sea level, breathing in the thinnest of air and enduring temperatures of -35C or less. Not all of them will make it to the top. Some will never make it back.

The photograph, published in The Daily Telegraph yesterday, taken on May 19, of this queue of ''mountaineers’’ waiting to attempt the summit is the best illustration yet of the growing problem of overcrowding on Mount Everest. Since it was first conquered by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Norgay Tenzing 59 years ago this week, the mountain has been scaled almost 6,000 times by 3,500 climbers. More recently, as weather forecasting, safety techniques and equipment have improved, the number of mountaineers has soared: more reached the top in one day in 2010 than in the 30 years after that first ascent in 1953.

Once the preserve of expert mountaineers, Everest is increasingly accessible to those with minimal experience and as their numbers have grown, so has the danger. A total of 223 people have died on Everest; 10 of them this year. As was widely reported, four climbers lost their lives this month, with some experts blaming the effects of oxygen deprivation as people waited to make the summit.

Leanna Shuttleworth from Buckinghamshire, who at 19 became the youngest British woman to climb the mountain on May 20, spoke of picking her way around dead bodies during her ascent. “One man raised his arm and looked at us,” she said. “He was dead when we came back down.”

British explorer Sir Chris Bonington, who led four expeditions up Everest, has criticised lack of regulation on the peak. “I think there should be a limit to the numbers you have on Everest at one time,” he said last week. “It can be a matter of life and death.”

This shocking picture – taken by German mountaineer Ralf Dujmovits – is unlikely to deter the new breed of adventure tourist for whom reaching the top of Everest is one more experience to buy and another box to tick.

“You can basically pay your way up Everest these days,” explains James Ingham, of The Adventure Company, a Hampshire tour operator specialising in group travel. “You need to have up to £30,000 for the trip, so it’s those in their late thirties and early forties who can afford it. These people are stable financially, but as they see their friends settling down, they want to carry on adventuring.”

Everest isn’t the only extreme travel destination to be taken over by middle-aged adventurers. In this age of exploration, even the most remote destinations are becoming overcrowded. Since 1992, the number of visitors to Antarctica has more than tripled to more than 45,000 a year, while long queues regularly form as tourists wait to get on to Easter Island in the South Pacific.

“Older travellers go further and pay more for an adventure,” says Ingham. “Everest has become so much more accessible – now you’ve got Sherpas carrying your tent and helping you dress, so the risk levels are much lower.”

Justin Wateridge, of Abercrombie and Kent Extreme Adventures, agrees. “These people have worked for two decades since their gap years, so they’re ready for another adventure,” he says. “Everest has become a bit like a conveyor belt.”

His comments tally with the results of a survey published this week by the Discovery Channel, which found that Britons don’t feel able to pursue adventures until they reach middle-age. They have ambitions to travel at 29, the poll found, but are unable to achieve them for around 12 years due to a lack of money and time. By 41, this is no longer such a problem: hence the huge numbers of middle-aged tourists dominating the adventure travel circuit. (The four climbers who died on Everest this month were aged between 33 and 62.)

“Seeing the world is on their bucket list,” explains Charles Milton, of Really Wild Challenges, an adventure travel company based in Edinburgh. “What appeals is the bite-sized nature of these adventures – one minute you’re in the office, the next you’re standing on the rooftop of Africa. If you wanted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro next Monday, we could make that happen. It is that simple.”

So if you’re in your forties and in need of adventure, the world awaits. But choose your destination wisely – if you don’t like queues, Everest might be best avoided. “Mountaineering is all about independence, solitude and being in the wilderness,” says mountaineer and author Peter Gillman. “It’s more dangerous with so many people around – the whole experience would be ruined.”

Middle-aged thrill-seekers, take note: perhaps you’d be better off at Alton Towers, after all.